The hotels, shipyards, and stores were
closed, bodies rudely nailed up in boards were hurried about the streets,
and met with hasty burial outside the city, before vital warmth had fled;
the holy ties of natural affection were disregarded, and the dying were
left alone to meet the King of Terrors, none remaining to close their
eyes; the ominous clang of the death-bell was heard both night and day,
and a dense brown fog was supposed to brood over the city, which for five
weeks was the abode of the dying and the dead.
A temporary regard for religion was produced among the inhabitants of St.
John by the visit of the pestilence; it was scarcely possible for the most
sceptical not to recognise the overruling providence of God: and I have
seldom seen more external respect for the Sabbath and the ordinances of
religion than in this city.
The preponderance of the rougher sex was very strongly marked at Waverley
House. Fifty gentlemen sat down to dinner, and only three ladies,
inclusive of the landlady. Fifty-three cups of tea graced the table, which
was likewise ornamented with six boiled legs of mutton, numerous dishes of
splendid potatoes, and corn-cobs, squash, and pumpkin-pie, in true
colonial abundance.
